Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Train for a Great Life. This is going to be rapid fire. Q&a set number three I love doing these. I'll just pop into chat GPT give me 10 common training questions and sometimes it's stuff I would never even think of and it just helps get stuff out of my head. Some of the questions, even on my first interpretation, might seem silly, but then I think you know what, like, I've just been in this space for such a long time that they are common questions and it just helps get stuff out of my head. So without further ado.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Number one what is a WOD and why do we name them WOD? W-o-d it just stands for workout of the day. That's all it is. And why do we have named workouts? That is just for quick reference, much like how tropical storms are named. That's it.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Number two how long should a workout actually be? That depends on what you're trying to achieve. You're going to have to adapt the stimulus to what you want. But that said, I think one of the great things and why CrossFit is so effective when it's programmed intelligently, is because it's very comprehensive. We do short, we do long, we do strength, we do body weight, aerobic training, right. So how long? Um, the? The sweet spot for CrossFit is is kind of this like eight to 12, maybe eight to 15 minute range, which, for a conditioning piece which is like clock, three, two, one, go, start to finish. Um, that might sound like it's short, but there is a lot of data to confirm that anaerobic work meaning like work that is done at a rate that you can't keep up with the oxygen demand produces not only anaerobic benefit but aerobic benefit as well, because once we go past about two minutes, aerobic system kicks in as well. So you're in this sweet spot of getting benefits of both and you're also, when you're in that timeframe, your work capacity, your output, your power output is actually quite high. If you're going to go for 30 minutes, naturally your power output is just going to decrease quite a lot. And if you go on the lower end, which sometimes you have to do sometimes you got to sprint for two to three minutes. That's valuable, but typically the the amount of workload is going to be a lot lower and, quite honestly, for for a lot of people that are not super athletically developed, tapping into that power output is very, very hard to do. So maybe not quite a rapid fire answer there, but hopefully it helps.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Number three what's the point of an on-ramp or intro program? Love this one. It is to help us start the coaching process. So for us, we are a coaching gym. We coach people. We don't just do workouts. We're not a spin studio where we've got a mic on and we're doing the workout with you. That is not coaching, that is instructing or leading. They're very different things. So we're also doing much more complex workouts. If we were doing spin classes, that would be fine, right, you could basically hop on a bike and go, but we're doing more complex movements, we're teaching movements. So we need to get eyes on people, we need to see their movements, we need to assess their movements, we need to make sure that they're moving safely. We need to learn about them as a person, as an athlete, as a mover, right? So on the end of the client, the athlete, there's a ton of learning about what's happening, this whole new world of fitness, and then on our end, there's a lot of learning about you so we can coach you better.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Number four how do I deal with calluses or hand tears? Um, I call the first few weeks and months of training. You have baby hands. Okay, you got soft hands. They're going to be uncomfortable. They're going to rip here and there, just simply because they're not calloused up. It does take some time. Things that you can do to help is don't let the callouses build up too big. When there's little spots, like typically, it's right up high on the hand, when they build up thick, it gives the bar something to grab onto a little bit more, and when you tear, it's going to tear big and it's going to tear pretty deep. So file those down, cut them down. You know, make sure there's not edges for things to grab onto. Gymnastic grips are really helpful as well. You'll still build up some callus underneath, but they will protect your hands and allow you to get some more volume of work in without tearing.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Number five should I wear a weightlifting belt? Totally dependent on you and your preference, there is value to a weightlifting belt. What they do is they essentially allow you to create more internal pressure. Okay, not the like, a perfect analogy, but like when you go to lift, if you're deadlifting, hitting a clean as heavy squat, you fill up with air, big breath, you hold and squeeze, okay, and when you do that, um, you're, you're forcing air in and you're creating increased internal pressure to basically keep yourself safe between your ribs and your hips. Okay, so stability, um, think of like forcing air into a big pop bottle, like a two liter Coke bottle. Okay, if you were to wrap a belt around there, you can still keep forcing air in. It's just not going to expand quite the same, and that's sort of what the belt does. Um, it's, it's not an essential thing. It will help, um, probably a little bit on the higher end of lifts to create a little bit more internal pressure. Personally, I like them, I like it as a cue, I like being able to push into it. So, um, yeah, hopefully that sort of demystifies any uh unclarity around weightlifting belts.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Uh, number six why do we sometimes use a clock and sometimes not? Well, sometimes not, because not everything needs to be measured. Sometimes we're working for quality. Um, often we are even on a strength session because you want to have a measured rest time, because there are there are sort of best practices around uh, lifting protocols and like the, the amount of reps, volume that you're doing, um, there is a certain period of rest time that is is most beneficial to getting results from that. Um, but then the, the clock, the use of the clock and conditioning pieces. It's measuring power output, it's measuring your work output, that's all. It is Right.

Speaker 1: 6:47

So, like a very simple sort of real life analogy. Um, it's very easy to understand that if you run a 5k in like 28 minutes and then you run it again in 24 minutes or 26 minutes, even, you've taken time off of your, your, your, uh, your distance covered, so you've expressed more fitness across a 5k run, okay, that is the same across a crossfit workout with, you know, mixed modality, deadlifts and push-ups and whatever. Um, it's also the same as like if, if you are, you know, redoing the soil in your gardens and you have to move like two yards of soil with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, um, for a lot of people, their fitness is going to impact that, and so if you can do that in 20 minutes, I don't I have no idea how long that would take, but if you can do that in 20 minutes versus minutes, because of your fitness, you have to take breaks, you get tired, your back starts to hurt. That's a real world fitness application. So it just allows us to measure, right, that's kind of a simple answer for it.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Number seven what's one underrated movement for full body strength? Kettlebell swing. I would say they're super effective. Posterior chain I mean, those are your go muscles. You get some grip out of it. You get a little bit of shoulder work, even though your hip is mainly doing the work. Kettlebell swing, that's a great one.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Number eight how do I break through a plateau? Okay, so I'm going to. Most people are nowhere near their athletic potential, their genetic potential, and a plateau, um, I mean, sometimes you just have to keep working through it. Um, you can get better at things for a long, long time. Um, and so I'm going to say it's probably not your training, it's probably your habits, it's probably your sleep quality. It's probably your habits, it's probably your sleep quality, it's probably your nutrition, it's probably your stress management and it's probably the things outside of the gym that are affecting you. On a plateau, if I'm being honest and like that's where you have to be honest with yourself as well A little look in the mirror.

Speaker 1: 9:03

Number nine can I train if I'm feeling a bit under the weather? Sure, yeah, absolutely. I think this is a sliding scale where you know if you're on death's door, if you have a fever like it's probably not the best thing to do. Just be smart. Like, what would you tell someone else to do? But if you're just a little bit under the weather, you know you got a bit of a cold sniffles, sinus pressure, whatever, um, you can absolutely do something. Just adjust to how you're feeling that day. You know, maybe you show up and lay the brick for that day. You're not necessarily trying to have the best training day that you've ever done. Oftentimes I've done this myself quite often and I feel better after the workout and even sometimes when I have like sinus pressure, breathing issues a little bit, um, that kind of goes away for the hour that I'm actually working. Um, not all the time. Again, your, your mileage may vary, but yes, you can do some work still.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And number 10, what are the best CrossFit movements for longevity? Okay, um, I I maybe a bit of a loaded question Um, um, the movements that you can do without pain. Everything that we do is is okay to do. They, they're movements, they're they're natural movements that our bodies can do. I know sometimes that, like olympic lifting um, for, for higher reps gets a bad rap.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Or like kipping, these things are all okay so long as your body can support doing it right. So, if you've got, like, shoulder and elbow issues, maybe we don't snatch right. If you've got back issues, maybe we're not taking bars to the ground repeatedly over and over. There are ways to work around these things. If you've got shoulder issues, maybe kipping is not the best idea. This doesn't mean that they're off the table forever, right, um, but these are just, they're low level gymnastic movements. When I say low level compared to actual gymnastics and like you know, stuff that they do.

Speaker 1: 11:00

Um, you know, a kipping, pull up is just, it's a pull up with a bit of force production from your hip, unweighting yourself, right, it's, it's an athletic movement, um, so, yeah, all of these things are fine so long as they're not producing, um, you know, short-term pain, acute pain. You're not doing something that's going to lead you to an injury. The movements inherently will not do that, but the movements under um, an environment of preexisting things that are happening with your body could. So I think it just comes back to like, be smart with your body. That, like you know, train your brain for longevity and not just like, oh, this is the workout on the board and just walk into it and don't ask questions and just do it, so hopefully that helps. I love doing these. I'll have another one coming up shortly. Enjoy. See you in the gym.